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Tibeto-Burman language spoken primarily in northeastern India From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mizo is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in the Indian state of Mizoram, where it is the official language and lingua franca.[5] It is the mother tongue of the Mizo people and some members of the Mizo diaspora. Other than Mizoram, it is also spoken in Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, and Assam states of India, Sagaing Region and Chin State in Myanmar, and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is mainly based on the Lusei dialect but it has also derived many words from its surrounding Mizo clans.[6]
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2023) |
| Mizo | |
|---|---|
| Mizo ṭawng or Duhlián ṭawng | |
| Region |
|
| Ethnicity | Mizo |
Native speakers | 1,000,000+[a] (2011–2022)[1][2] |
| Latin (Mizo alphabet)[3][4] Bengali-Assamese script[3] | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Mizoram (India) |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | lus |
| ISO 639-3 | lus |
| Glottolog | lush1249 |
Regions where Mizo is educational, and official
Regions where Mizo is educational, but not official
Regions where Mizo is not official and not educational
Regions with significant Mizo speakers, and where Mizo is a working language | |
 Mizo is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The language is also known as Duhlian and Lushai, a colonial term, as the Duhlian people were the first among the Mizo people to be encountered by the British in the course of their colonial expansion.[7]
Mizo is related to the other languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family.[8] The Kuki-Chin-Mizo languages (which native Mizo speakers call Zohnahthlâk ṭawngho/Mizo ṭawngho) have a substantial number of words in common.[9]
Mizo has eight tones and intonations for each of the vowels a, aw, e, i and u, four of which are reduced tones and the other four long tones. The vowel o has only three tones, all of them of the reduced type. The vowels can be represented as follows:[10]
| Starting with a | Starting with e | Starting with i | Starting with u |
|---|---|---|---|
| ai (/aɪ̯/, /ɑːi/ or /ai/) | ei (/eɪ̯/, /ɛi/ or /ɛɪ̯/) | ia (/ɪə̯/ /ɪa/, /ja/ or /ɪa̭/) | ua (/u̯a/ or /ua̭/) |
| au (/aʊ̯/, /ɑːʊ̯/) | eu (/ɛu/, /eʊ/ or /eʊ̯/) | iu (/ɪʊ̯/ or /iw/) | ui (/ɥi/ or /ʔwi/) |
Mizo has the following triphthongs:
Mizo has the following consonants, with the first symbol being its orthographical form and the second one its representation in the IPA:[10]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | ||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p [p] | t [t] | ch [t͡s] | tl [t͡l] | k [k] | h [ʔ]1 |
| aspirated | ph [pʰ] | th [tʰ] | chh [t͡sʰ], [tʃʰ] | thl [t͡lʰ] | kh [kʰ] | ||
| voiced | b [b] | d [d] | |||||
| flap | ṭ [t͡ɾ] | ||||||
| aspirated flap | ṭh [t͡ɾʰ] | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f [f] | s [s] | h [h] | |||
| voiced | v [v] | z [z] | |||||
| Sonorant | plain | m [m] | n [n] | r [r] | l [l] | ng [ŋ] | |
| aspirated | hm [ʰm] | hn [ʰn] | hr [ʰr] | hl [ʰl] | ngh [ʰŋ] | ||
| glottalised1 | rh [rʔ] | lh [lʔ] | |||||
As Mizo is a tonal language, differences in pitch and pitch contour can change the meanings of words. Tone systems have developed independently in many daughter languages, largely by simplifications in the set of possible syllable-final and syllable-initial consonants. Typically, a distinction between voiceless and voiced initial consonants is replaced by a distinction between high and low tone, and falling and rising tones developed from syllable-final h and glottal stop, which themselves often reflect earlier consonants.
The eight tones and intonations that the vowel a (and the vowels aw, e, i, u, which constitutes all the tones in Mizo) can have are shown by the letter sequence p-a-n-g, as follows:[11]
| Short tones | Long tones | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mid | rising | falling | low | peaking | high | dipping | low |
| a | (ǎ / ă) / ả | (ȧ / ã) / ą | ạ | â | á | ä | à |
| o | (ǒ / ŏ) / ỏ / (ó) | ọ / (ò) | |||||
| aw | (ǎw / ăw) / ảw | (ȧw / ãw) / ąw | ạw | âw | áw | äw | àw |
| u | (ǔ / ŭ) / ủ | (ů / ũ) / ų | ụ | û | ú | ü | ù |
| e | (ě / ĕ) / ẻ | (ė / ẽ) / ę | ẹ | ê | é | ë | è |
| i | (ǐ / ĭ) / ỉ | (ĩ) / į | ị | î | í | ï | ì |
Note that the exact orthography of tones with diacritics is still not standardised (notably for differentiating the four short tones with confusive or conflicting choices of diacritics) except for the differentiation of long tones by using the circumflex from short tones. As well, the need of at least seven diacritics may cause complications to design easy keyboard layouts, even if they use dead keys and even if not all basic Latin letters are needed for Mizo itself, and so publications may represent the short tones using digrams (e.g. by appending some apostrophe or glottal letter) to reduce the number of diacritics needed to only four (those used now for the long tones) on only two dead keys.
In Mizo[12] verb tense is indicated by the aspect and the addition of particles, such as:[13]
Mizo gerunds and past participles are formed by a change in word ending called tihdanglamna.
| verb | modified form |
|---|---|
| ziak, 'to write' | ziah, 'writing, written' |
| tât, 'to whet' | tah, 'whetting, whetted' |
| mà, 'to divorce' | mâk, 'divorcing, divorced' |
Mizo nouns undergo declension into cases.
| nominative/accusative | genitive | ergative | instrumental |
|---|---|---|---|
| nụlá, 'the girl' | nụla, 'the girl's' | nụláịn, 'by the girl' | nụláin, 'by means of the girl' |
| tǔi | tǔi | tuiịn | tuiin |
| Thangạ (a proper noun) | Thanga | Thangȧ'n | Thangạ-in/Thangạ hmangin |
Nouns are pluralised by suffixing -te, -ho, -teho or -hote.
| singular | plural |
|---|---|
| mipa, 'man' | mipate, mipaho, 'men' |
| naupang, 'child' | naupangte, naupangho, 'children' |
All Mizo pronouns occur in two forms, namely in free form and clitic form and are declined into cases.
| nominative | genitive | accusative | ergative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| clitic forms | ka, 'I' | ka, 'my, mine' | mi, min, 'me' | keima'n, 'by me' |
| kan, 'we' | kan, 'our, ours' | min, 'us' | keimahnin, 'by us' | |
| i, 'you (singular)' | i, 'your, yours' | che, 'you' | nangma'n, 'by you' | |
| in, 'you (plural)' | in, 'your, yours' | che u, 'you' | nangmahnin, 'by you' | |
| a, 'he, she, it' | a, 'his, hers, its' | amah, 'him, her, it' | ama'n, 'by him, by her, by it' | |
| an, 'they' | an, 'their, theirs' | anmahni, 'them' | anmahni'n, 'by them' | |
| free forms | kei, 'I' | keima, 'my, mine' | keimah, 'me' | keima'n, 'by me' |
| keimah, 'we' | keima, 'our, ours' | keimah, keimah min, 'us' | keima'n, 'by us' | |
| keini, 'you (singular)' | keini, 'your, yours' | keini min, 'you' | keini'n, 'by you' | |
| keimahni, 'you (plural)' | keimahni, 'your, yours' | keimahni min, 'you' | keimahni'n, 'by you' | |
| anni, 'he, she, it' | anni, 'his, hers, its' | anni, 'him, her, it' | anni'n, 'by him, by her, by it' | |
| anmahni, 'they' | anmahni, 'their, theirs' | anmahni, 'them' | anmahni'n, 'by them' |
For declarative sentences, negation is achieved by adding the particle lo (not) at the end of a sentence:
| Sentence | Negation |
|---|---|
| Lala a lo kal Lala is coming/Lala came | Lala a lo kal lo Lala did not come |
| Pathumin paruk a sem thei Three divides six | Pathumin paruk a sem thei lo Three does not divide six |
The Mizo alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet and has 25 letters.
| Letter | a | aw | b | ch | d | e | f | g | ng | h | i | j | k |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | |||||||||||||
| Letter | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | t | ṭ | u | v | z |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | ||||||||||||
In its current form, it was devised by the first Christian missionaries of Mizoram, J. H. Lorrain and F. W. Savidge,[16] based on the Hunterian system of transliteration.
A circumflex ^ was later added to the vowels to indicate long vowels, viz., Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û, which were insufficient to fully express Mizo tone. Recently,[when?] a leading newspaper in Mizoram, Vanglaini, the magazine Kristian Ṭhalai, and other publishers began using Á, À, Ä, É, È, Ë, Í, Ì, Ï, Ó, Ò, Ö, Ú, Ù, Ü to indicate the long intonations and tones. However, this does not differentiate the different intonations that short tones can have.[17][18]
The following is a sample text in Mizo of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:[19]
Mizo: Mi zawng zawng hi zalèna piang kan ni a, zahawmna leh dikna chanvoah intluk tlâng vek kan ni. Chhia leh ṭha hriatna fîm neia siam kan nih avangin kan mihring puite chungah inunauna thinlung kan pu tlat tur a ni.
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience. Therefore, they should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Mizo has a thriving literature, which has both written and oral traditions. It has undergone a considerable change in the 20th century.[20]
The Mizoram Press Information Bureau lists some twenty Mizo daily newspapers just in Aizawl city, as of March 2013.[21]
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